Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Corporate Welfare Charter Schools--the Vampire Squid of Education

On Sunday, March 23, 2014 in a speech
at Riverside Church in Manhattan, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, faced
with declining public opinion poll numbers, made nice to charter school
companies and their wealthy backers. He told congregants that his
administration and the charter movement have a common goal and share common
ground. But de Blasio should not have made nice. They do not share common
ground. Many charters, including those not-for-profits operating by leading de
Blasio critics, are about making money for top executives. Educating children,
when it actually happens, is at best a by-product.

De Blasio
backed off in his criticism of charter school companies and their wealthy
backers following a $3.6 million television advertising blitz that accused him
of abandoning quality education for inner-city Black and Latino children. The
campaign was orchestrated by Eva Moskowitz, founder and chief executive officer
of the Success Academy Charter Schools, who has a number of wealthy and
politically powerful backers. Governor Andrew Cuomo
spoke at a pro-charter rally organized by Moskowitz and targeted extra funds
fort charters in the state budget. Moskowitz and
Success Academy received financial support from 2007 to 2013 from among others
the Robin Hood ($1 million), William Simon ($75,000), Tiger ($850,000), Walmart
($4.6 million), MRM ($400,000) and Broad ($11.4 million) Foundations, as well
as donations from hedge fund and corporate managers Paul Singer (no relation to
me), David Tepper, and Daniel Loeb.

The recent televion campaign in
support of charters was financed with money from the Walton Family Foundation
(Walmart) and hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones. Jones, less
well known than Walmart, was the founder and chair of the Excellence Charter
School. After initially being associated with progressive political activities,
he drifted to the right and donated
heavily to Republican Party presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

Moskowitz
targeted de Blasio because he raised questions about the usefulness of the
charter schools movement in during his election campaign and blocked her
application for three new charter sites in public school buildings. Most of Eva
Moskowitz's charges against de Blasio and claims for the superiority of her
programs were refuted by Diane Ravitch
in a Huffington Post column.

Currently, there are approximately 2.5 million students enrolled in publicly
funded charter schools in the United States. These charter schools are operated
by both profit-making companies and "not for profit" organizations.
In New York City
every charter school is operated by what is known as a 501(c)(3) non-profit
organization. In New York State, only 16 out of 209 charter schools are
operated by for-profit companies. In other states, particularly Michigan,
Florida, and Arizona, for-profit
companies dominate the charter school movement. In Michigan, about
65% of the charter schools are run by for-profit educational management organizations

However, operating non-profit
charter schools can be very profitable for charter school executives like Eva Moskowitz.
Moskowitz earns
close to a half a million dollars a year ($485,000) for overseeing school
programs that serve 6,700 children, which is over $72 per student. By
comparison, New York State Education Commissioner is paid a salary of $212,000
to oversee programs with 2.7 million students or about 8 cents per student. In
other words, Moskowitz earns about 100 times more than King for each student
enrolled in a Success Academy Charter School. Carmen Farina, New York City
School Chancellor is paid $212,000 a year to oversee 1.1 million students or
about 19 cents per student.

According to my calculations and The
New York Times, other non-profit charter school administrators also make
some very heady profits. The head of the Harlem Village Academies earns
$499,000 to manage schools with 1,355 students or $369 per student. The head of
the Bronx
Preparatory School earns $338,000 to manage schools with 651
students or over $500 per student. The head of the Our World Charterearns $200,000 to manage
schools with a total of 738 students or $271 per student. The local head of the
KIPP Charter Network earns $235,000 to
manage schools with 2,796 or $84 per student. By comparison, the chief
educational officer of Texas
is paid $214,999 to manage a system with almost 5 million public school
students.

Charter school operators are not
the only Not-for-Profit or social
entrepreneurs making money off of public schools. Charles Best created
DonorsChoose.org so that public school teachers can raise money to pay for
class projects. Best and his non-profit organization have received support from
Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and
has been a featured speaker at a Forbes
magazine summit on philanthropy. A former public high school teacher in Bronx,
New York, he would have been making about $85,000 a year if he remained as a
teacher. As a not-for-profit entrepreneur, he makes about three times as much,
almost $250,000a
year from Donorschoose.org plus whatever he earns from lucrative speaking
engagements.

Jeremy Kittredge
is Executive Director of Families for Excellent Schools, which is listed as a
sponsor of television advertisements in the current New York Charter School
advertising barrage. According to his Linkedin
page, he graduated from Brown University in May 2008, became coordinator of
Civic Participation at Democracy Prep in November 2008, Executive Director of
Democracy Builders in May 2010, and went to work at Families in July 2011.
According to the Families for Excellent Schools, Kittredge was also a public
school teacher and union organizer but if his Linkedin site is accurate, he
must have done those jobs as a teenager before he went to college. On the
organizations 2011 tax forms, Kittredge is listed as earning under $40,000 in
his half year of employment, but since then he has twice been listed by Forbes
magazine as one of their promising 30 Under 30. I have been unable to find out
his income since then but I suspect it is higher. The major funder of Families for
Excellent Schools is not surprisingly the Walton
Family which gave more than $700,000 from 2012 to 2014.

Robert Hughes and New Visions for
Public Schools is another example. New Visions
operates 4 charter schools, operates a school support network, and, claims to
be the largest education reform organization working to improve New York City
public schools. As president of New Visions, Robert Hughes earns $333,500 on
2012. The highest paid New York City teachers with 22 years of experience can earn
$100,000. A New York City high school principal
with 22 years of experience as a principal earns $154,000 a year.

I have one misgiving about
publishing these figures. Once Eva Moskowitz sees what CEOs are earning at
KIPP, Our World, Harlem Village, and Bronx Prep, she will probably be demanding
even more money to run her non-profit charter schools.